What is Burnout? How To Recognize and Overcome It

What should you do when each time you attempt to complete a task, you feel burnout, stressed and as if your head is boiling out of control?

It is the climax and nobody can talk you out of the choices you have just made. Burnout is a looming feature when you have reached that specific stage in your profession, where you are utterly disenchanted with your job and no longer derive much satisfaction and fulfillment in everything that you do.

It is high time that you gave yourself a break and de-stress from the rigors of burnout, tension, and anxiety that have been tearing your world apart.

Burnout, Tension, and Anxiety

Burnout stems from a deep-seated sense of dissatisfaction and fatigue with a task or profession that used to provide so much zest and stimulation.

Burnout, sometimes used interchangeably with stress and anxiety can afflict even highly passionate and spirited persons who confront challenges where their interest and passion are gradually stripped away and ultimately lose the drive to endure and push on.

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Tension

Tension is any emotional or mental strain which triggers physical and psychological stress and may result in anxiety and other physiological abnormalities.

Tension, mental and physical strain can be a circumstance, event or thought processes capable of overwhelming you and rendering you fatigued to the point of hysteria. On the contrary, anxiety is a feeling of agitation and apprehension over something that is acknowledged or unidentified.

Excessive tension and sustained anxiety can be deleterious resulting in psychological, and physiological problems like heart disease, infection, immunosuppression, and anxiety disorders. Chronic Stress and anxiety at the workplace can also lead to burnout or fatigue.

How To Deal With Burnout

Persons from different walks of life have various methods of dealing with difficult situations such as burnout.

The Much-needed Vacation
Embarking on a long overdue vacation may attend to the issue of fatigue and boredom. However, this may not be very effective in eliminating the sense of dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, and tension.

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The Laid-back Posture

Some individuals handle burnout by being passive about it. To accommodate it and refrain from doing anything about it is one of the worst ways to deal with burnout. Such indifference ultimately leads to anger and bitterness as opportunities for resolution are lost.

Individuals with this mind set risk just “going through the motions” without significant progress.

Career Change

When the passion and drive that previously inspired to the peak of your profession have dissipated, ultimately crippling your creative drive and job satisfaction, it hints at the need to make a career change.
A new undertaking engenders a different perspective and the platform to start again while not ignoring lessons learned from the previous endeavor.
It is important to note that just simply switching career may not be the panacea to job stress. Your previous pedigree may not be ideally suitable for your new role because of a whole range of variables beyond your immediate control.

Competition with much younger people puts you at a gross disadvantage because of their readiness to accept to accept lower wages, thus, affect your bargaining power. Also, the demands of a new profession might be much harder to deal with due to your lack of experience in a new calling. It can only ameliorate burnout situations temporarily.

Changing Jobs

As compared with career modification, a modification of task within the same field of undertaking or occupation is much like having the same task but in an entirely dynamic environment.
Your abilities and the previous experiences you have acquired can be transferable and provides the option to rededicate your initial objectives to start once again, without being overwhelmingly tasked with responsibilities that emerge from staying on the very same job for too long.
Persons who did not derive fulfillment with their previous organizations may benefit from a career change.

However, the disadvantage with this step is the possibility that you might end up with the same scenario again if the reason for burnout is the job itself, and not other factors like management and co-workers.
By adopting this type of proactive mentality, one can understand the reason for burnout, avoid it, or reduce it to the barest minimum.

A Positive Attitude

When people come to terms with their circumstances, they learn that hard work is not the only thing that matters, that significant achievements require the support of other people, and most significantly, that they are not super humans.
They embrace the reality that pressing issues deserve prompt attention to forestall the repetition of the same mistakes.

More importantly, remember to seek professional help, either from your Doctor or Counsellor before things get out of control and propagate a rippling effect.